


Boulevard of Broken Dreams

by sasha_b



Series: Live By The Sword [7]
Category: King Arthur (2004), Original Work
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-08
Updated: 2013-08-08
Packaged: 2017-12-22 19:55:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,307
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/917407
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sasha_b/pseuds/sasha_b
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lancelot decides his turn at the helm of his father's business is not what he wanted.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Boulevard of Broken Dreams

**Author's Note:**

> Part of my Live By The Sword 'verse. I am posting these in the order I wrote them, but the story was told out of order. Arthur, a cop, and Lancelot, a mobster's son. All lyrics courtesy of Green Day's American Idiot.

_But it’s home to me and I walk alone_

“You want to what?”

 

Arthur blinked, shaking his head, not sure if he had heard correctly the words that had just come haltingly out of Lancelot’s mouth.

 

The small hotel room they were in was dark and quiet. The ocean crashed against the rocks below; the once ritzy community of Malibu was asleep – it would wake again soon enough when the sun rose. Riots and the possibility of looting waited for no man.

 

“Don’t make me repeat it, Arthur. It’s hard enough to say once.”

 

Arthur leant forward, grasping Lancelot’s chin in his hand. “Are you serious? Because it’s not a joke, Lance. It’s not a way to put aside your problems only temporarily. If you want to do this – do it for the right reasons. Don’t expect to be able to hide from your family this way – in fact, you’ll be more prominent.”

 

He took his hand away quickly.

 

_Been too long – and I’m getting used to not having him around._

 

The phone call out of the blue had startled Arthur enough into making him realize he desperately wanted to put things between he and Lancelot to rights. Or at least to just see him.

 

Two years. Two long, strained, wrong years. He still spoke to Gwen, when she wasn’t in Paris or Italy or some other foreign place that Arthur had only dreamed of seeing.

 

Lancelot, however – that was a different story.

 

“Business getting bad?” Arthur snipped, then sighed. His emotions were on parade, and had decided that his rational mind didn’t get to have a say in what he was doing. Lancelot looked at him angrily, his eyebrows drawn together.

 

“Fuck you, Arthur,” he cursed through his teeth, “You know how hard this is! I wouldn’t have bothered you otherwise,” he trailed off, dropping his eyes to the small amount of space between them.

 

“You didn’t speak to me for almost two years, Lance. What was I supposed to do? Moon around outside your penthouse like a kicked dog? I have a job – responsibilities I have to see to. I have a life.” No matter how empty. Arthur’s hands picked at the cover of the bed.

 

“Damn it, Arthur…I did what I had to do. At the time…and now it’s killing me. I need your help. I want to do something that actually means something – and I see what you do everyday, and I want that. I want that feeling of going home at night satisfied that I didn’t hurt anyone or make anyone’s family into widows and orphans.”

 

Arthur looked up, their eyes clashing. “That was your choice. I just delivered the message – you didn’t have to go back to them.”

 

“Are you joking?” Lancelot laughed brightly, too loudly. Arthur wanted to put his hands over his ears, but he restrained himself.

 

“Do you have any notion of what I would have gone through had I not taken his place?” Lancelot hissed, his face flushed, his lips pulled back in a snarl. “You know what they’re like. You’ve witnessed all your life what my family’s capable of. They would have gotten to me, to us, somehow. Aside from the fact I’ve been groomed my whole life to take over father’s spot – I just didn’t expect him to actually – die.

 

“I didn’t think I’d ever really have to do it,” he finished in a whisper.

 

Arthur knew Lancelot was right; he knew the hell the man had gone through growing up. He knew how many times he’d tried to escape his ‘destiny,’ his ‘duty.’ Arthur had the ultimate respect for duty and loyalty, but he knew when something was out and out wrong.

 

His job, his duty took him to a place that was exactly opposite of where Lancelot was now, where his life had been for as long as Arthur had known him. He had hoped that Lancelot would be able to pull away and overcome his family and their wishes, but … circumstances had intervened and things hadn’t gone the way they should have, in Arthur’s mind at any rate.

 

_Read between the lines of what’s fucked up and everything’s alright_

 

God…it’d been an age since he’d seen his friend this broken, this vunerable. Despite the flawless Italian suit, thousand dollar shoes, and Tag watch, the other man looked like a waif, his eyes large, his lips pinched and trembling slightly.

 

Arthur suddenly saw through the paint on the outside of the shell – and caught a glimpse of Lancelot – just his friend Lancelot, not the mob boss or man responsible for the pain his family had caused others for generations. Just a man he’d once loved, once connected with, and lost.

 

He absolutely and totally missed him so much that he felt it in his blood.

 

“So you want to go to the academy. Seriously.”

 

Lancelot looked up. “I do. Arthur – I see what a change it’s made in you. In your attitude, your life, your self. I want that. I’m jealous of it. I need to feel like a human being again.”

 

_I walk alone_

 

Arthur winced, and let out a breath, the sigh escaping like the air from a balloon. He felt horribly guilty, washed up, torn apart. He had seen what Lancelot was becoming; cold, separated, a machine. He had hated it – and yet couldn’t bring himself to do anything about it except for severing ties with the other man.

 

Until now. And he realized that what he should have done was stay loyal – stay with him, and help him be what he could have been – what he could be now.

 

_I can now. I have the chance to make up for what I didn’t do two years ago. To rectify that night when I told him about his father – and let him drive away._

 

“Then I’ll help you.”

 

The other man stared at him, doubt on his angled face, insecurity in his eyes. “You… you will?”

 

“Lance. If you’re serious about this, if you really and truly want to get out of the business of death, then I’ll do whatever you want me to do. But if you’re using this as another misguided attempt to try and find an temporary escape – then God help me, but you’ll never see me again.”

 

Lancelot shook his head, his hair slipping into his eyes. He pushed it back impatiently. “I’m serious. As a heart attack,” he joked, then dropped the smile. “Thank you, Arthur.” His hand slipped from his hair to Arthur’s hand, which was on his knee.

 

_Kiss the demons out of my dreams_

 

Oh, fuck.

 

Arthur’s fingers shook once under Lancelot’s; it’s been a long time. He turned his palm up, twining their fingers together, not looking at the other man, but at their hands wound together. Very similar in build – one slender, one thicker, but still hands – and so different in the things they were responsible for.

 

He shut his eyes, the image of their fingers growing like vines suddenly flitting through his mind, crawling up his and Lancelot’s arms, wrapping around their torsos, dipping into their chests, finally ending up lodged in their hearts, their thoughts and souls combined into one lush, growing, vibrant living thing.

 

Well – no one ever accused him of not being a romantic.

 

“Arthur?” the voice was small, uncertain. Arthur’s eyes fluttered open, slowly, the world coming into focus again – his gaze settling on Lancelot’s worried face. “It’s okay,” he said softly. “I’m just – thinking.”

 

“You do that too much,” the other man joked, relief making his words sound boyish. “You’ll worry yourself into an early grave. And I’m not worth it.”

 

“Who said I was worried about you?” Arthur deadpanned. Lancelot snorted. “I know you too well, remember?” he replied, then chewed on his lip, the weight of that statement hitting both of them.

 

_My shadow’s the only one that walks beside me_

 

They both jumped as the radio by the bed suddenly came on; the previous occupant of the room had obviously left the alarm on.

 

“Fuck,” Lancelot laughed; he leant over and switched the thing off, his jacket gaping open as he did so.

 

Arthur’s face darkened, his brows like thunderclouds above suddenly grey eyes. “You brought a gun.”

 

It wasn’t a question.

 

“You brought a weapon – to meet with me?” the words were bitten off out of tight lips.

 

“I always carry one, Arthur,” Lancelot sighed, his hand untangling from Arthur’s, running through his hair, carefully fixing his jacket. “I have to.”

 

“You said no one knew where you were going.”

 

“No one does. I just – Arthur? Wait. Where are you going?” Lancelot jumped off the bed hastily and followed Arthur as he walked stiffly toward the door, his leather coat in his hand.

 

“Out. Away from here before I do something stupid I’ll regret.”

 

_Like allow myself to get hurt by you yet again._

 

He jerked the door open, and stumbled over the concrete parking barrier that was at the edge of the lot. Seeing a set of stairs that led to the water, he walked jerkily to them, decending as quickly as possible, even though he could hear Lancelot’s feet pounding after him.

 

He knew he couldn’t hide from the other man; question was, could he hide from himself?

 

“Arthur!”

 

Lancelot’s voice had a hysterical edge to it, and he almost crashed into Arthur as he abruptly stopped where the water was just breaking onto the sand. His shoes got wet. He didn’t care.

 

“Please, Arthur,” the other man was breathing heavily, his words cracking as he spoke. “Don’t – don’t go away angry. Don’t.”

 

“You don’t have anything to fear from me! Why the hell would you bring a weapon unless you thought someone might be tailing you…or do you not want people to think you’d be seen with a cop unless it’s to do some damage? You afraid someone will have followed you?”

 

Lancelot twitched at Arthur’s shouting; he swallowed heavily and shoved his hands in his pockets.

 

“No. No. I – wasn’t sure how you’d react. And yes, I was afraid someone might have followed me – or some of the press might find me. You know I’m not exactly invisible these days,” he tried to make the remark sound self depreciating, but it ended up sounding cocky. He shook his head.

 

“We’re in Malibu, for fuck’s sake,” Arthur sighed. “Who would look for you here? This place is worse than a DMZ.”

 

Lancelot stared at Arthur, his hands twisted together, not able to keep them still for long. Arthur wanted to weep. “I still can’t trust who you’ve become, can I?” he whispered at last. “You like the power. Don’t you?”

 

Lance just kept glaring, not agreeing … but not denying, either.

 

_My shallow heart’s the only thing that’s beating_

 

And that was the last thing Arthur could take at that moment.

 

“You know where to find me. I’ll be going home now.”

 

He turned, and made his way up the stairs to his car, managed to get the keys out of his pocket, only fumbling once, and opened the door shakily. He felt the air ghosting past him as Lancelot caught him up.

 

“I love you,” the voice came from behind his right ear, quiet and despondent. Arms surrounded him as the owner’s hands braced themselves on either side of him. Arthur’s head tipped forward, and he closed his eyes. Lancelot’s body pressed into his back, the long, lean flesh of his thighs and stomach a burn that set Arthur alight.

 

“Fuck. Off,” was all Arthur could say. He wasn’t going to cry. No. Not in front of anyone at any rate.

 

“I miss you so much I can’t sleep. My insides twist up. I’m dull and bored and empty and I need you, Arthur. I need you so much I can’t stand myself or anything else. Please. I see blood on my hands all the time now. Please, Arthur, please don’t leave.”

 

_Well, so much for the not crying promise._

 

He turned around so he could see Lancelot’s eyes. The man could lie to Arthur like no one’s business, but Arthur could always tell – his eyes gave it away. 

 

They were clear brown, moisture making them shine, and reflected only the truth of what he spoke.

 

“Lancelot,” Arthur choked, forgetting in the moment how much the other man hated his name, ignoring his own damning and highly mortifying tears, “why?”

 

“Because,” was the answer, “just because I do. I can’t explain with words. Let me have you. Please, for the love of god, you’re the only thing clean and right in my life. I have no shame,” Lancelot continued, his eyes spilling over and his hands clutching at Arthur’s shoulders, “I’ll do anything you ask. I want – I need to be simple again. And the way to do that is with you. You’re the part of me that works, Arthur.”

 

He was openly sobbing. The waves hid the sound, but Arthur’s eyes tracked the fall of tears down his face. 

 

Lancelot had always been melodramatic; however, Arthur had never seen him like this. It was like he was a different person – stripped raw, nerve endings bleeding and bare. It made Arthur sting and hurt like he’d been scraped over a pile of nails. And he couldn’t – he wouldn’t – let anyone, least of all this man, suffer like Lancelot so obviously was.

 

He didn’t answer, just tugged Lancelot to him, his arms going ‘round his torso, his legs parting to allow one of Lancelot’s knees to slip between them.

 

“It’s okay, Lance, it’s okay,” he murmured. “We’ll fix this. I’ll help you. Whatever you need from me, you’ve got it.”

 

“F-fuck, Arthur,” Lancelot stuttered, “just hold me. That’s all I need right now.”

 

That, he could do.

 

_Welcome to a new kind of tension_


End file.
